Sister Myra

[a short story – by Sha’Tara]

The old nun walked slowly through the partly enclosed walkway of the orphanage’s west wing that housed the various offices, common room and infirmary.  It was a cool Spring day and she was enjoying the scents of freshly mowed grass, opening leaves and early flowers poking up among the stones lining a network of walking lanes.  In the distance children could be heard laughing and screaming at their play.  She reached down and checked her pocket watch – recess.  She smiled at some hidden thought.

When she reached the front office the reporter from the Gazette was already there.  Sister Myra greeted the nun at the desk, then extended her hand to the reporter. 

“Nice to see you again after so long, Candace.  So you did become a reporter after all, huh?”

“Yes Sister I did – however many times you warned me against taking up this profession!”

“Well let’s just say I warned you against the many pitfalls of the profession, not against the profession itself.  And why would your magazine want to do a story on an old nun now?”

The reporter, a tall well-dressed woman in her early thirties with shoulder-length raven black hair and piercing blue eyes, shrugged then smiled openly.  Instead of answering the nun, she opened her arms and took the old woman in hers.  The desk nun silently left the room.

Finally Candace disengaged herself from the old woman, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and said, “It was my idea to give you an interview Sister and I thank you for allowing me this opportunity.  I must say the convent was very much against it and it isn’t in print yet.  My editor doesn’t think I’ve got a story here, but I know better.  I’ve never forgotten the years you mothered me and made me forget I was an orphan; how you cared for me, then taught me and gave me priceless advice, much of which is only now beginning to make sense.  I’ve always wondered, how could a woman who lived her entire life within these walls know so much about the world, and about the people in it?  I remember especially this line you would give me: ‘Candace, when you are finally out there in the streets fending for yourself and you come to a crosswalk with an inviting ‘walk’ light, don’t assume that is the best place or the best time to cross the street.  Before you accept an offer, know your purpose in doing so.’  If only I had understood… and listened!”

“I’ve undoubtedly said a lot of things.  There was a time when I thought I was qualified to teach you see.  Fortunately I’ve outgrown that childish notion… and ambition.  Seems to me I don’t know that much after all.”

“Please let me be the judge of that for the moment.  What I really want to know; what I believe my readers want to know is this: what motivated you to become a nun?  How did that happen?  What makes one suddenly forsake everything and chose this life, celibate, hidden behind a habit and the walls of a convent?”  She pulled a recorder from her purse.  “May I tape this?”

“Of course.  God is listening to us so what does it matter who else listens, huh?  My child – forgive me, I realize you’re a grown woman, not a child but habits die hard, no pun intended – there are as many reasons to take the veil as there are nuns, likely.  I will try to give you a picture of my reason, or reasons.  They may not be as dramatic, or romantic, as you’d hope!”  The old woman sighed, then chuckled.  “That’s a long time ago, you know.  I may get a headache trying to remember and then who knows, but I may adlib a bit too.  I hope you don’t mind if I tell you a story that isn’t word for word what actually happened.  I’ll correct myself along as my memory of those times returns, God willing.

“I was raised in a middle-class home with four siblings, three brothers and one sister and of course we were Catholic.  I was fourth oldest and the first girl and as such, being the oldest girl, my position soon carried many of the responsibilities of the home.  But times were changing fast.  We were well off and the meaning of home responsibilities in the suburbs dwindled.  Life was so easy.  I had it so easy.  My early teens saw the earliest changes wrought by the hippie movement (if one can call it that); rock n’ roll, drugs and loose morals.  I was pretty, well educated, popular, and my parents were too involved in themselves to worry much about us.  I guess they figured they had given us what we needed to make proper choices with our freedoms and the Church had done the rest.”

She stopped talking, gazing out the window of the office, past a statue of the Virgin down the maple lined boulevard that constituted the main driveway into the convent grounds.  The wind rustled the leaves and moved shadows on the pavement.  Sister Myra seemed to be trying to recall some specific event.  She continued.

“During my early teen years I fell in – and out of – love many times.  I liked boys and I knew I’d never have to worry about being stood up.  You might say there was always a line-up.  I suppose I was a bit of a bitch – oh, does that word surprise you coming from me?  Heheheheh…  No, really, I treated them badly and I’ve regretted it many times afterwards.  I played fast and loose with their feelings, not realizing how much I was hurting some of them.  Long ago I stopped blaming the times for my attitude and made amends as best I could, at least towards God.  I hope those boys, as they became men and found proper women, forgot or forgave me for it all.

“More specifically to your question Candace.  When I was about nine I received a visitation, as we called it then.  The Virgin appeared to me, I think it was in a dream and sometimes I think I was actually awake, just lying on my bed thinking.  It was this time of year and just before my birthday.  I wanted a horse and the fact that we lived in the city and I knew nothing about animals except for the cats – we always seemed to have at least one around – didn’t stop me from wishing.  Well you have to be careful with wishes you know, they can lead to unexpected results.  I remember feeling strange, kind of light, as if I were floating over my bed.  Then I saw a person at the foot of the bed and I recognized her right away.  It was Mary, of course.  She smiled at me, put a finger over her mouth to indicate I should remain silent, then spoke into my mind.  ‘I’ll make you an offer,’  she said to me.  ‘I will make it so you can become a nun if you should choose to do so.  Do not decide now, you are much too young.  Think about it as you observe your world and your own life in it.  A day will come, and you’ll know, when you will be able to make your choice, just like that.  Once you make that choice you will not be able to change your mind.  I have a reason for calling you now and someday you will know that reason.  You have free will.  This choice is yours, my birthday present to you, Danielle.  I shall come to you again after you make your choice.’

“And with that she was gone.  And so was my notion of wishing for a horse.  I tried to be less self-centered and selfish after that.  For some time I could see some changes in me but it seemed to be such hard work for so little result.  The vision faded from my mind with each passing year and when I became a teenager all I really wanted to be was like all my friends, especially when I went into senior high from the Catholic all girl school.  That was quite a mind boggling event – for a short time.  Kids adapt very fast, especially to situations that give more personal freedom and less discipline.  I know I got quite wild at times during that first year, just trying to be cool.  So much so I failed grade ten.  Physics and math were definitely not my strong point…  I am sorry, I seem to be rambling here… This is not what you came to hear, is it?” 

“Yes, yes, fine Sister.  That is great.  I just want you to speak your thoughts as you remember them.  Please continue.”

“Yes.  Well, there was an accident one night.  A drunk hit my parents’ car and my mother was critically injured in the accident.  She died within the month.  My father re-married quite soon and my step-mother was very nice, but remained aloof, and a stranger.  I think she understood she would never quite fit in and at least didn’t try too hard, for which we were thankful.  When I was fifteen, my older brother Ian, then twenty-two, surprised everyone by announcing he was leaving to join the Special Services.  After two years we no longer heard from him.  Through some diplomatic channels of the Church My dad found out Ian had been sent to Vietnam.  He was never heard of again.  He just seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.  The family lost some of its cohesiveness and we drifted apart even though we still lived in the same house.  We still had good times and went to church every Sunday, the one day that for a short time we were all together again.  But it wasn’t the same anymore.  It was habit, not family.  Len, that was my second oldest brother, married and moved a couple of blocks away.  Annie, his wife, and I didn’t hit it off at all and since I was more or less in charge of the house by then, we didn’t see much of them.”

Sister Myra sighed, signaled for Candace to turn off her recorder and stood up.  She walked slowly to the window and looked at the trees again.  Above the sky was a light Spring blue, cloudless except for the ever present contrails.  A silvery jet preceded one of them, a flimsy metal bird carrying the dreams of hundreds of passengers to preordained destinations.

“Would you mind if we continued while walking outside, Candace?”

“Not at all, that would be fine.  I’ll just change the batteries here first.”  She deftly opened her bag and switched the battery pack, throwing the low one back in the bag.

Myra walked to another doorway and called, “Sister Maude?  You may have your office again.  We are stepping out.  Thank you.”  The younger nun returned, acknowledging the reporter and Sister Myra with a double bow, then took her place at her desk, resuming scrolling data on her computer screen.

“Because of the breeze and other noises I’m going to have to go wireless mike, Sister.  Do you mind if I clip this to your collar, here?”  She indicates the place and Sister Myra smiles at her and nods OK.

“I don’t want to drag this out Candace, but I needed some fresh air and space for what comes next.  As I told you, I wasn’t in any way a model person, neither as a young woman, nor as a human being.  I did pick up my pace at school and finally made honor roll.  I was still having quite a good time in extra-curricular activities and missed few functions, whether approved or clandestine.  I learned to smoke and drink, in that order, and I found out what the back seat of those heavy fifties sedans were for. 

“I was eighteen when I entered my first year of college.  I was more popular than ever and could have had any of a dozen boys who invented countless ways to let me know they were interested.  I continued to flirt until the Christmas vacations of that year when we had a very heavy snow fall and the weather plunged the lowest I’d ever experienced.  After the prom which was held a week before Christmas day I found myself in need of a ride home after my date and I had a difference of opinion and he opted to take someone else home.  Steve McCutcheon, son of the local GM dealer and probably the richest man in town, offered me a ride in his dad’s heavy four wheel drive pick-up truck.  Steve hadn’t been one of those boys importuning me with bad verses, flowers or posturing and I was shocked when we arrived at my house and he turned to me and flatly stated, “Danielle Leary, I love you.  I’ve loved you since the first year of senior high and I feel I’ve nothing to lose in telling you so now.  I know I’m at the back of a long lineup but I don’t care.”  How could I have been so blind and callous not to have noticed him?  Suddenly I remembered the times he’d helped me struggle with my math and physics, two subjects at which he excelled – at least I knew that much about him.

“I must have stared down at my shoes for a minute or more.  My thoughts were in complete disarray.  What was I supposed to say to him?  What was I supposed to do now?  He saved me the trouble by stepping out of the cab, walking around the front in the snow now close to a foot deep and opening my door.  I guess that was my cue to step out, give him a light kiss on the cheek and run in the house out of the blizzard.  But instead I put my arms around his neck and invited him in.  I knew the house was empty.  Dad and step-mom were partying at their club.  My brother Barry had taken our youngest sister Nan to a friend’s place out of town and I knew they wouldn’t try to come back in that blizzard.

“Steve helped me down off the icy step bar of the truck, locked the cab and took my hand as we struggled up the buried cement steps into the house.  It was warm and cozy inside as we took off our heavy coats and boots.  Christmas lights threw a subdued light over everything.  I didn’t turn on the main lights.  Instead I asked him to sit on the couch and offered him eggnog with rum, my favorite Christmas cheer.  I watched him making himself comfortable on the couch while I prepared the drinks.  I noticed his body, tall and muscular but not conspicuously so.  He had long straight blond hair combed neatly.  And his hands, so large.  Wonderful hands!  He noticed me and smiled, openly, innocently.  I still couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed him before.

We each had a couple of eggnogs, the second with twice the rum in it.  I put an Elvis LP on the Phillips Hi-Fi and we danced, getting closer and closer with each one.  Finally we were just standing there, in the middle of the living room, holding each other, feeling each other.  My heart was beating so loud I though he could hear it.  I felt a buzzing in my head and finally pulled away from him, picked up the glasses and washed them in the sink.  He followed me and put away the remaining eggnog and the rum.

“When I turned he was just staring at me.  I looked into his face and said, “I think we’d better go to my room.  You can’t drive home in this stuff and you’ve had too much to drink.”

“I know I could have gotten some spare blankets and offered him the sofa but I was way past the point where my mind was in control.  My heart was in charge and suddenly I knew, I just knew, what it was to be in love, truly and completely in love.  I held him tightly for a moment and kissed him passionately full on the lips.  And I felt very ‘grown up’ when I said, to remove any doubts he may have been harboring, “I want you to make love to me, in my bed.”

“I’m sure I need not tell you, Candace, what a night that was, as you’ve had yours and you know what it’s like.  I knew there’d be no one else after that.  We decided we’d announce our engagement on Christmas day.  By then everyone knew we were an item as they said then, and although it seemed sudden to some, particularly to Steve’s mom, she put on the stiff upper lip and all that and accepted me in her home as one of the family.  You could say that I grow on people but it’s a slow growth.”  Myra chuckled at the perplexed look Candace was giving her.  “You know Myra, before we become anything else; before we become functions or professions, we are, all of us, first of all women.  Try to remember that when it’s your turn to give an interview.”

“I’m sorry Sister, I don’t understand.  Who’s going to interview me?”

“God of course, who else do you think?  Mind you, if you win the Pulitzer, you may get interviewed by lesser mortals but that won’t matter so much because mostly they’ll expect you to lie.”  She laughed and Candace found herself laughing with her. 

“By the time Christmas morning came the storm had completely blown itself over.  Cold and clear it was and snow was piled high everywhere shovels and plows had gotten to it.  I’d attended Midnight Mass with dad, step-mom, Barry, Nan and of course Steve.  We hadn’t slept together since the night of the prom and we had an unspoken agreement that it would be so until we got married.  But I thought about him all the time and each moment seemed to make him even more wonderful.  I remember lying in bed listening to a branch rubbing against the side of the house and watching the light change as the sun began to rise over the snow-covered rooftops.  Real icicles dangling from the eave troughs sparkled outside my window.  I snuggled back into my warm sheets and blankets and was beginning to doze again when I felt that lightness again and the light took on a different shade.  Suddenly it seemed as if it filled my bedroom and left no shadow.  I ‘stared’ in sudden expectation and dread.  I had my second visitation, as she promised.  The Virgin appeared much as before and smiled at me.  I had confessed my adulterous relationships, of course but I did not expect her to smile.  I thought she’d find much fault with me and frown her disapproval.  But you see, she too understands what it means to be a woman, young and in love.  And she was looking deeper into me, calling me to follow.

“She took me by the hand, or so it seemed, and we walked through an archway made of blue and purple flowers down a walkway also bordered and covered in flowers.  As we walked I saw inside myself, at everything, the good and bad, mostly it seemed the bad (we who think judge ourselves the most harshly) and I found no judgment, just a kind of happy conclusion, an acceptance of where I’d gotten.  So it was, I understood, that God was looking at me.  It wasn’t an invitation to continue blithely into a life of sin and uncaring, quite the opposite: it was an invitation to a new way of life.  It was an opportunity to create a change; perhaps to grasp that elusive ‘purpose’ those of us who think sense that we have.

“I’d always believed that all of us have a purpose and I’d always wanted to know what mine was.  I’d struggled with my reality because it seemed to me that most people just follow a routine set by others, who got theirs from those before and so on.  It seemed to me that was one of the reasons there were so many truly big problems on this world; problems that overwhelm the individual to the point where we believe we can’t do anything by ourselves, relying always in numbers to bring about change.  I was never what you’d call a social person although I was popular (not the same thing) and my lack of interest in developing social skills left me feeling completely disempowered.  If I couldn’t work with groups how could I ever hope to contribute anything to the betterment of life on this planet?  So I found myself settling for safety, comfort and convenience. 

“As we walked on I realized that my sudden commitment to Steve was all part of a pattern.  In him I would have relative ease, a ready-made acceptance in the community and I wouldn’t have to stand out.  I would just have to be at his side and accept what he chose to do.  We would have a nice house, two or three kids and I’d have my own station wagon to do the shopping, the visiting and take care of the kids’ transportation as they grew up.  I saw myself, not as an individual growing and learning, but as a piece of a pattern from a mold and that pattern, barring some disaster, would become a comfortable rut, one you do not seek to get out of.  Steve was my new dream, my Christmas wish, much like the wish for a horse I had when I was nine.

“I was shocked, Candace, to realize how the years pass and we seem to grow yet we do not change at all in those things that truly matter – in those things that we are gifted with by life so we can change ourselves; so we can break the patterns within ourselves without having to hurt others in the process.  I realized that my life belonged to me alone; that I did not have to mortgage it to any pattern so I could enjoy bits and pieces of it along the way.  I realized then I could have it all.  But to do that, I had to give it all away; all of it that mattered to me.

“A stone bench appeared along the walkway and the Virgin indicated I should sit down.  I felt very tired and heavy on my feet so I sat.  I realized as I did so that I was wearing a white veil and a long-sleeved white dress that reached to the ground and covered my feet.  My feet were bare and I could feel a pulsing from the ground as if it too was trying to reach to me and encourage me.  But no matter how good I felt at that moment I knew that within myself, the girl in the bedroom, I was terrified of this vision; of what this moment was asking me to do.

“It was asking me to stop living in imitation and become a real person.”  Sister Myra stopped speaking again and reached for Candace’s hand, holding the young woman’s slim, long-fingered and smooth hand in her own bony, purple-veined one.  The contrast and meaning were not lost on the younger one.  She whipped out her cell phone and took a picture of their joined hands.  She showed the results to Sister Myra.

“With your permission Sister, I want this picture to head my article.”

“You have my permission and blessing on top.  It does say much, doesn’t it?”

“I know there is much more to your story but it’s past noon and I skipped breakfast to get here on time.  Is there a place where I can buy lunch?  Can I take you to a restaurant perhaps?”

“Heh, a restaurant!  Some of our rules have been relaxed over the years, but some I choose to keep nevertheless.  A restaurant won’t do.  Besides no one does tortellini better than Sister Nita in our kitchen.  The girls will be back in their classes by now.  Why don’t we go and find out what leftovers can be scraped from the pots, huh?”

There was a mischievous twinkle in the old nun’s eyes that Candace remembered well.  She laughed at the thought of ‘leftovers’ and followed Sister Myra back into the great stone building.  Diminutive, ancient and ageless Sister Nita remembered Candace on sight and the following meal lacked for nothing.

“I hope I can get out of this chair!” moaned Candace.  “I don’t eat like this now and good thing too.  Imagine what I’d look like packing two hundred and fifty pounds around!”

“Don’t worry, you’ll wear it off.  You’re a rack of bones and flit about like a chickadee.  Come, maybe we can finish this interview in one of the adoption room.  It’s gotten cooler and I feel the weather is changing again.  It’s only April after all.  Winter still tries to have a say in things…”

They settled in comfortable chairs and Candace opted to keep using the wireless mike. 

“So now, where was I?  Oh yes, I was at the point of having to make a critical choice, wasn’t I.  ‘To stop living in imitation and become a real person’ I believe were the words I used?”  Candace nodded affirmatively.  “And how does one do that?  I looked upon the Virgin but she seemed to fade away.  I looked inside myself and it was only too clear.  The message was the same as before: if you would have it all – and that is what it means to become real – then you must give it all up, for until now my ‘all’ was made of imitation.  None of it had yet to become me, you see?  I had lived as a copy of something and someone else, always.  But if I gave all of that up then I’d have no choice really but to begin anew.  I could be ‘born again’ by that single choice.  There would then be no turning back, not ever.

“So there and then, I made my choice Candace.  I knew that I’d been working towards that moment since the first vision and I had always known I’d have to make it.  Everything that was familiar to me, that was of some comfort and certainty would have to go.  I also knew there was really only one way for me to do this with assurance: I’d have to join one of the orders of the Church.  Not to become another follower or worshipper of what she does not understand, but to define myself within a world with the least amount of complications regarding relationships and ownership.”

Candace, unable to contain herself, interrupted her.  “But Sister, what about Steve?  You had a solid commitment to that man.  And what about love?  You admitted that you knew for the first time what you had with him was true love and that there would never be another.  How did you reconcile that?”

“My child, I did not reconcile it then.  I could not.  You see, faith allows room for miracles.  What I’d need when I came out of that vision and re-entered the real world was a miracle of some sort.  So for the very first time I truly knew I needed a miracle and fully expected one.  For I remembered what the Virgin had told me the first time: ‘I’ll make you an offer,’  she said to me.  ‘I will make it so you can become a nun if you should choose to do so.’  Well Candace my dear, I knew then, as I know now, that when you believe in someone that person cannot lie.  She would do what she had promised to do, and she would do it for me.  I would use my faith and common sense, surely, but this would be done through a bona fide miracle even if I were the only one who would see it as such.  Thus it was that I came out of my vision and found myself on my bed, ecstatic, petrified and devastated all at the same time.”

“Well Sister, if you’ll pardon me, I think your Virgin lacked compassion.  I think her timing stank, ok?  Your story makes me really mad.  It’s like you were being played with in your mind and made to destroy what life had finally given you: true love and a chance at a happy life!  I don’t get it, or maybe yes, I get it, only too well.  That wasn’t freedom you were offered, just another form of servitude in an old pattern of female slavery inside another aspect of the System.”

“Of course you are correct in your assessment – from your point of view.  So far there was nothing new.  People change course like that all the time and it amounts to nothing.  Mostly they’re running away from something that frightens them even more than what they are contemplating.  Mostly they’re the fools that rush in where angels fear to tread.  But let me ask you this:  haven’t you had your offer of true love?  How long after you left here to pursue your career as a photographer before you encountered your own true love, your own Steve?  I remember a letter you sent me.  It was less than one year and you were madly in love and had moved in with, let me remember, Alan.  Yes, wasn’t he the instructor in one of your classes on advanced photo-journalism?  Then there was another letter.  Two years later, give or take, Alan had moved out ostensibly because he took exception to your ‘religious’ ideas.  Actually, he got another apartment and another student moved in with him. 

“I’m not being mean here Candace, just trying to make a point.  You’ve had two more ‘serious’ relationships since then and now are alone again.  You are thirty-three years old, rent an apartment, lease a car, borrow equipment to do your job and come and go at the bidding of your bosses at the magazine.  Need I ask what coin of the realm you used to convince your editor to do this interview, this possible story he doesn’t think much of?  What was the trade-off?  Please don’t answer that.” 

She looked at Candace shrewdly but with full empathy as the younger woman clicked off the recorder.  “Yes indeed, before we are anything else we remain women.  Men… and particularly our silly feelings will never let us forget it; not until we become self-empowered.  If only I could teach you what that means but you did not come here today to be taught, you came for a story.  Only you did not appreciate the fact that any story any woman would tell you… would be your own story girl.  In any case, the best advice is meaningless to those not ready to hear it.  There is a time and place for everything.”

The old woman got up and went to kneel before the reporter.  She took her in her arms and let her sob freely as she felt the weight of the nun’s words.  Myra reached for a box of Kleenex from a small dresser and handed a wad of them to Candace. 

“Thanks,” she managed to whisper.  Then a bit louder she said, “That’s the most sincere crying I’ve done in a long time, Sister.  It’s quite funny actually.  Now that you broached the subject, I did come here for a story but what I was doing was bringing a story that needed to be told – my story!  Maybe if we finished this interview, I’d know a bit more of who I am and what my own purpose is in life… May we?”  She turned her recorder back on.

“I expected a miracle Candace.  Nothing less would do in this situation.  And I got it.  After I got dressed and put together as best I could I went downstairs to great my family, open the presents and I called Steve.  We decided he’d pick me up around two PM and we’d have Christmas dinner at his parents’ place.  I waited nervously thinking two o’clock would never come and got even more nervous when I heard the unmistakable sound of the heavy four by four.  I put on my coat and boots and walked out, careful to avoid the icy sections of the steps.  Always the gentleman he ran up to take my arm and help me step up into the high cab.

“I wished him a merry Christmas as I held his hand and he did the same.  I was surprised to see that he’d most certainly been crying.  And I’m sure he noticed the same thing about me.  I looked at him questioningly, wondering if something terrible had happened at his home. 

“Danielle… there is something I must tell you.  Only I don’t know how to tell you because it’s totally nuts.”

So in his usual fashion he just blurted it out.  “Call me crazy but I had a dream last night.  It was about you, and I suppose, about me also.  In this dream you wanted to be set free from the engagement and I felt exactly the same way.  Then when I woke up this morning I realized that is exactly how I felt.  I’m sorry Danielle but I think I made a huge mistake in promising to marry you.  I made a mistake in sleeping with you for which I’ll never forgive myself.  I let my feelings dictate my moves rather than common sense.  I don’t want to get married Danielle.  I can’t get married.  I… I’m… Oh God, I’m gay, Danielle!  I have to finally admit it to myself and you’re the only human being who knows this thing.  I’m a disgusting person…”

“I admit I was kind of shocked.  I mean it’s one thing to expect a miracle; it’s quite another to have it handed to you in such a way!  It took me a few moments to gather my thoughts, then I just burst out laughing!  ‘Steve, that’s great!  That’s just wonderful!  Thank God you are with someone who can understand and appreciate your dilemma.  I too had a dream last night, or rather a visitation.  It was the Virgin and she had promised me long ago to make it so I could become a nun if I chose to do so some day.  This morning I chose that path and I was so, so worried about hurting you when I told you of it.  Your dream is my miracle.  No, you’re my miracle.  Without your interference in my life I’d still be running around like a teen-aged idiot looking for good times and nothing else.  Thanks to you I can now have my life… my own life.  Don’t regret sleeping with me – you didn’t do anything wrong if it helped you decide your own course.  I certainly don’t regret being with you – you were wonderful to me, and you will continue to be so forever.  I love you Steve McCutcheon, you’re my knight in shining armour who rescued me from the dragon of lust.’

“Well, those were more or less my words to him, and if they were overstated, remember I was pretty emotional by then. We managed to carry on as if everything was normal, indicating that our engagement would be on hold for a while, at least to the end of the next semester.  I couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly at the obvious look of relief on Mrs. McCutcheon’s face and how powerfully she hugged Steve when he got ready to take me home.  ‘No wonder he’s gay,’ I thought.

“And after?”

“I announced to my family, making sure Steve was there so they’d know there was no bad blood or bad feelings between us, that as soon as my college year was over I’d join the order.  I had already applied and been accepted as a postulant.  In my application I had indicated that my chosen name was “Myra” – a woman martyr I’d read about in a novel.  It was an easy and simple transition from that complex and weird world to this one of simplicity, quiet and total selfless responsibility to young lives who have no one else to depend on but us.  I raised and tried to help so many children, of which over a hundred, including you, Candace, I consider to be my own.  All of your hopes, dreams, nightmares, pains, loves and successes and failures, they have been my own and continue to be.”

“So in all of that Sister, have you discovered what your  purpose is?  If I may be so bold, what all of our purpose, is?”

“Yes, I think so.  At least I’ve looked in that room.  Have you ever wondered about the Cosmos, Candace?  About infinity?  About life as all-encompassing?”

“I suppose everybody does at some…”

Sister Myra interrupts Candace abruptly and firmly.  “No!  I don’t mean everybody.  I asked you.  Have you, as an individual, pondered your life, it’s source, direction, purpose and possible end, if end there be?”

“Why would anyone do that?  There are no answers outside the standard ones, simple multiple choice: heaven, hell, extinction.  Extinction is easy.  As to heaven, there are rituals one can engage in to guarantee one’s entry there; and as for hell, there are certain un-repented acts that also guarantee one’s entry.  Are you saying there is another choice?”

“Do you think God is a fool, Candace?”

“Pardon?”

“I said, ‘do you believe God is some sort of idiot, or madman?’”

“Some would say so, in fact I’ve heard him referred to by even more choice epithets.   But for me, sincerely?  No, I think that God, as inscrutable as he’s remained to me, is of superior caliber, and intelligence.  Why do you ask that?”

“Tonight, since the weather is clear you will be able to see the stars.  Count the ones you can see.  Remember your physics.  Do the math again.  Think about how many worlds similar to ours there are out there.  Then ask yourself if an intelligent God would go to all that trouble just so you can look at pin pricks of light in the night sky.  Could the universe not be teeming with life similar to our own?  Perhaps even identical to our own?

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about in my prayers and meditation times since I’ve been here, over forty years now.  I’ve used my time with you girls, orphans, as a training ground, a beginning, so some day I could really be of help out there.  I try to imagine how many orphans there could be just on this one planet, then how many in the universe. 

“Purpose?  It’s not hard to have a purpose when you believe in God – which by the way is just another way of saying you believe in yourself.  Nothing is impossible Candace, and yet it is quite impossible to believe in God if you do not believe in yourself first.  For if you do not exist as a real person, neither can God.  The sheep have many shepherds, many gods.  The System, of course, wants it that way.  This is, after all, a world ruled by the predator-prey relationship.  Their shepherds, to the very last, are all wolves, Candace.  Only the self-empowered can know God.  Only by knowing God can you inherit true life.  There’s our purpose, Candace.”

“Oh, Sister, I’m running out of battery time here…”

“Another miracle girl.  It’s time to quit.  You have your story.”

“Yes indeed Sister.  I have my story, thanks to yours.  I’ll send you a signed copy of the magazine when our story comes out, if it does.”

“Oh, it will, don’t worry about that.  I have it from the highest authority…”

Sister Myra laughed as she led Candace out the foyer into the late afternoon sunshine.  “A beautiful day, Candace.  Just another simply beautiful day.”